


the gods are hungry

by leradny



Category: Moana (2016)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Character Death, Mention of human sacrifice, and tui's fear is explored a lot, but don't worry, i cried several times writing this, spirituality, the ocean is Not Nice, this thing has a, this was hard to write, tui disobeys the gods a lot, tui's anger is explored a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2017-09-28
Packaged: 2019-01-06 09:58:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12208923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leradny/pseuds/leradny
Summary: Tui doesn't know if it is easier or harder to call his daughter Moana. He thought it would be hard to explain to the elders why he named his child after the ocean they are forbidden from, but when they say her name, everyone simply nods. "We knew," Mother says. "We heard the gods say her name."





	the gods are hungry

_There was a tiny island with only three people: Fevanga, his wife Fefafa, and their only daughter, Kava. They were subjects to a chief on the main island, but the soil was so poor that the only thing they subsisted on was taro. It had been a very bad year, and there was only one plant left on the island._

_One day the chief came to their island and searched for food, but found nothing, and lay down to sleep on the only taro plant left on the island. When Fevanga heard his chief had come, he hurried to prepare a feast as was proper, but arrived at the taro plant to find the chief asleep on it. As a commoner he dared not wake his chief and show disrespect; yet he must also prepare something to eat. The only solution was to take the life of their only daughter and offer her to the chief as food._

_When the chief found out what sacrifice had been made in his honor, he was deeply moved and ordered Kava to be buried in highest regard. From her grave sprung two plants--one was sweet sugarcane and the other a bitter root which we now call kava in honor of the girl. The sweetness of love must always be upheld by the strength of hard work and the bitterness of sacrifice._

\- - -

It's early, a few weeks before the birth is due. Tui hadn't thought anything when Sina went for a walk--even when accompanied by both their mothers, and a gaggle of sisters and aunties and cousins. Sina's stomach was grumbling and she thought a walk would help calm it. She hadn't paused, just called out to Tui, and he'd let her go. She'd been spending a lot of time with her mother and he doesn't want to begrudge her that, not after her first pregnancy had ended with such sadness.

Not twenty minutes later, Tui looks up to see a couple of cousins hauling his wife up the path to the village. He runs out, wondering if something's wrong, but there's only laughter in the women's voices as they call to him, their footsteps in the sand smudging a dark line of water trickling from between her legs.

Then his eyes follow the trail until he sees the shoreline, and the horizon, and a pattern of stars...

He knows those stars.

The fishhook is there, pulling his child out of the womb. The moon rises, as it was on that night, and the water from Sina's belly followed the ebbing tides. Instantly he's a young man again, staring into the ocean which had taken his friend and left the ruins of the boat drifting by the shore.

The women misunderstand the stricken look on his face, think he's staring at Sina with terror in his eyes, and laugh. "It's all right! This isn't too early, no one comes exactly on time." Behind their words is the unspoken assurance: This isn't like last time.

His mother turns to look over her shoulder straight at the fishhook. Then she looks back at Tui and says with her usual humor, "Don't just stand there, Tui!"

But her eyes are kind and return Tui to the present. He is chief now, not a teenager, and his wife is having contractions and _she should really be lying down_. Lifting Sina off her feet, he hurries to the house, shouting for the medicine women as he passed the big hut. They all come out at once, but grumbled when they see it's just Tui. They send only one woman and a yawning apprentice after him. Tui worries.

After about the seventh time he asks Sina if she really feels all right, his mother sends him out of the room to calm down.

\- - -

At sixteen, the elders crack down on the sailing lessons that Tui and Huli were taking with Mother. They take too much time away from their chief lessons, officially. When the elders leave, Mother scoffs and says bluntly, "They're just afraid you'll sail off one day and not come back. But you'll come back, won't you boys?"

"Of course, Mother," Tui says. He'd inherited Father's dutifulness.

"If the elders stop being a pain," Huli says, making Mother cackle. He'd inherited her sense of humor, which none of the elders liked.

The restriction is all right during the daytime. He could just fill the time he usually spent in sailing lessons with other things. But the pull to the sea is stronger at night without anything to do. He wanders along the shore, picking out the stars Mother taught him about during sailing. But there is one constellation that she never got around to, something he'd noticed when he was a boy. It looks like a fishhook. He'd always thought that was where Maui's hook went after the battle with Te Ka, flung into the sky.

"Hey Tui."

He jumps before recognizing Bulan's voice. "Hey, what are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing."

"Couldn't sleep," he says, sitting down on the platform of rock.

"Neither can I. Mom's sick, so I'm getting the fish when my dad comes back."

"At this hour?" Tui asks. "It's too late to fish, isn't it?"

"Sorry, granny!" Bulan laughs and swats his shoulder. "Didn't realize fishermen had a curfew." Tui laughs a little, but the teasing reminds him that the elders wouldn't like finding him here staring at the stars and the ocean, so it comes out stiff. Bulan quiets and sits down next to him. "Nighttime's the best time to fish," he says. "You don't have to fight over who got there first, who deserves the big catch, whose fault it was that there are no fish, who has more children to feed, blah blah blah--"

He flaps his hand and Tui laughs for real. Fishermen don't argue a lot, but when they did it got nasty. "Is that why your name means moon? It's easier to fish at night?"

"A little, I guess." Bulan looks at the sky and points to the crescent. "Right before I was born, the moon was full and my dad got the biggest haul in months. My granny said the lady in the moon knew I was a boy, so she sent the fish to make me big and strong. And look at me now!"

Bulan flexes his arms and both of them laugh. He's tall, but he certainly doesn't have the warrior build coveted by Tui.

"Your granny was right," Tui says. "If I weren't your friend I'd be scared of you! When I'm chief I'll put you in the warriors so you can guard me and my kids." As they finally catch their stride with easy banter, he looks at the ocean for the lone ship on the horizon. I wish I was a fisherman, Tui thinks, a sudden thought but fierce. No one can sail beyond the reef, but at least the fishermen can sail at all.

A call across the water startles Tui until it comes again and he makes Bulan's name out.

"Well, that's my dad." Bulan gets up and points down the shore where a tiny dark triangle was pulling up. "See you tomorrow."

"Yeah," Tui says, then changes his mind. "Wait--hang on, I'll help you out."

It isn't sailing, he reasons. It's just hauling baskets. I'm not even on the boat.

Bulan's dad gives him a basket of fish for his help which he slings easily over his shoulder and hauls home. At home, Mother and Huli are asleep.

Tui decides there's no reason in wasting good fish, so he starts a fire to cook tomorrow's breakfast, hunts down his flint knife and scales and cleans the fish. But instead of wearing him out, he gets strangely more restless, like he's going to jump out of his skin. On the very last fish, his knife hits something hard.

He cuts a large X into the fish expecting to dig out an ordinary pebble, but the stone which falls to the floor is the the strangest, most beautiful thing. It's a small piece of poumanu but the purest stone he's ever seen, a bright green without any specks or streaks, engraved with Te Fiti's spiral. Such tiny marks, how small would the knives have been? Only a grandmaster could do that. But he didn't know any stonecarvers who revered the goddess in particular. Benevolent as Te Fiti was, she's also a lost goddess, so her help is not a sure thing.

A woman's amulet, he decides. Women still pray to Te Fiti for children and Mum had shown him some amulets that were given on her wedding day. They looked a bit like this, but carved from driftwood or lava rock. Yet the only woman he can think of who can afford something like this is Mum, who already has amulets--and two children. It isn't a large family, especially without Dad, but it's enough. A stone like this would have been overkill and sent gossip through the village like wildfire. And he wouldn't have found it in a fish if it was his mother's.

But then there's his oldest cousin, Pono. She and her husband have been trying to conceive for a while, and though it's still a little early to worry about children, she's starting to worry anyway. Being related to royalty, it isn't unreasonable to think that she could afford this. And, he thinks, their particular branch of royalty has had trouble conceiving.

_There’s a task for you, my dearest one._

"What?"

The woman's voice surprises him, soft and gentle. He calls his mother and looks into the other room to find her still asleep. Anyway, Mother calls him many things but 'dearest one' is not remotely close to her nicknames. Must have been his mind wandering. He should get some sleep. He finishes cooking up the fish and tucks the stone into his pocket.

\- - -

When dawn rises, their child is finally free of the womb--a healthy girl with a set of lungs that already promise a lot of sleepless nights. The apprentice gives Sina a brew for any lingering pain while the medicine woman checks for unusual bleeding, and everyone cleans up. Sina puts the child to her breast, and Tui is about to ask about names before she closes her eyes and falls asleep. He stands around awkwardly waiting for her to wake up until Mother gathers up piles of cloth into a basket.

"You can take her when she's done nursing," she tells him. "Just don't drop her!" She cackles, mops Sina's brow with a cloth, and takes the basket to the washing room. When the baby is full, Tui picks her up and she gurgles and smiles like all that wailing never happened. Then she nestles into his arms and falls asleep and Tui is most definitely charmed. Even though she's still red and pinched-looking. (The medicine women had assured him that all babies look like that.)

In the quiet, with his unnamed daughter in his arms, Tui has time to think.

Unfortunately, his thoughts return to unhappier things like the rising moon, the fishhook of stars, and the shore. Sina couldn't possibly know the significance of that spot on the beach. He had never been strong enough to tell anyone--besides Mother--what happened. He couldn't bear what he might see in their eyes. It was the very shore where years ago, he and his best friend had run carelessly into the waves, and only one came out alive and it was Tui.

His heart starts beating loud and fast in his ears and the baby whines and grumbles like she's about to cry again. Tui takes a deep breath, then another, and to his surprise calming himself down soothes his daughter.

_Her heart follows mine_ , he thinks, smiling. He thinks of teaching her to be a good chief and dancing with her at the harvest festival. And then he remembers the beach and his smile fell.

Yes, she will be a good chief, but she will also have a longing for the sea. If Tui knows anything about omens, this means the sea will win.

He can't have that. This birth went well, amazingly so, but with his cousin's miscarriage it seems that she will be the last child born in this year. He hopes this will not be the last child born to him and Sina, but something tells him--with the number of children shrinking and miscarriages growing--she will not have many brothers and sisters. Sina had a miscarriage herself the very first year they were married, and it devastated her. Her mother had been the one to assure both of them that it was not unusual, a first pregnancy was delicate and she herself had had two miscarriages between her five healthy children.

That was another sore point for Tui. The main reason the elders had allowed a marriage between the chief's heir and a weaver with very thin ties to nobility was not because Tui loved her and she loved him, but because she had so many brothers and sisters even in this sad time. Obviously, the best woman possible to carry on the chief's line. Of course, if there were no other children Sina would receive scorn and not him.

The room shrinks around him. Tui hurried to the next room with his child. "Mother, what do I do?"

"Give her a name," Mother says, without looking up from her washing. "Wait until Sina's awake, if you want."

"I mean, what if she's the same as you and me?"

She looks up then. "I should hope she is--she's supposed to be my granddaughter and your child."

"Mother," he pleads. He looks out the window to the shoreline, bright blue and free of clouds or stars.

"You mean--" Mother lifted her arm and pointed out the window to the sea. "What if she wants to go out there?"

\- - -

The fish had been accepted warmly, and when they'd eaten their fill Mother sent Huli and Tui to their aunts and uncles to share the feast. Tui took the opportunity to head to Pono's house, a little further into the village proper.

"Tui!" Pono says, hugging him. "What's the occasion?"

"We had too much fish, so we're sharing before it goes bad."

"Thank you so much!" She lets him in and puts the fish away. Her voice is a little too loud and her hands a little too brisk as she searches for an empty basket. She keeps dropping things. In-between her forced cheer, the quiet in the house is stifling. She never quite meets his eyes either. "Nako had some business to finish, otherwise he'd be here. But sit, sit!" All of her baskets were full, so she disappeared into the storage for another one. Tui wonders if something's wrong. She seems upset, but not sick--and if Nako's running errands, he isn't sick either. But it doesn't have to be that... "What's new, cousin?" she calls. "Besides the fish.

"I found something--an amulet--and I thought it might be yours," Tui calls.

"Mine? Not Nako's?" she calls back. There's a lot of rummaging going on, and then she comes out with a basket that seems far too small for all the fuss.

"Yeah, it's... It's very feminine, in my opinion."

He takes the stone out and holds it up. Pono wandered closer to look with half an eye, then drops her basket. The look on her face frightens him. It's desperate, almost starving. In a flash Tui knows that the amulet isn't hers--she's probably never even seen it before. And he also knows exactly what is wrong to make the house so quiet and probably even the reason Nako's away instead of having lunch with his wife. Pono reaches for the amulet with a shaking hand. Then she draws it back and says, slowly, "No. It's not mine."

"Sorry, Pono. I didn't mean to offend you, I just thought--"

"No, I'm not offended. It's beautiful. I'd love something like that, really. It's just not mine."

"Take a closer look," he urges, pressing it into her hands. "Maybe you'll know who does own it."

She gives it the same hungry stare, but shakes her head and hands it back. "Really, Tui, if you don't know who would own this then it doesn't belong to anyone on Motunui. Even the stone is different from our poumanu. It's so bright and clear."

"Okay..." He looks around at the fish lying in a row on the table and an idea strikes. Looking through them, he somehow isn't surprised to find the one with the x that he carved into it, crispy black and raised slightly like a scar. "You want to know where I found it?"

She shrugs.

"In a fish," he says. "This one right here, actually. I thought it blunted my knife when I was cleaning it and that amulet fell out."

"Just like a story." She looks at it, then at the stone, and her shoulders relax. "Look at me, I'm so hungry I completely forgot my manners. Tui, do you want a drink? This fish looks good."

He nods and nurses his cup of coconut water while Pono picks the flesh off like some precious, rare medicine. They talk about the family and how his lessons were going and Tui steered the conversation away from anything related to the stone. Then Nako comes back with something jar-shaped wrapped in a dark, heavily embroidered cloth, something he discreetly puts behind his back when he sees there's a guest. Tui greets him and apologizes for not staying long, but he has a lot of fish to give out.

"What was that about?" Nako asks, just before Tui gets out of earshot.

\- - -

Sina leaves the baby with her mother. Tui explains that they need to get some air while they decide on a name.

It's not a lie.

Tui spreads a blanket onto a soft, warm patch of sand and takes out a piece of paper. He writes down the name he wanted out of their possible choices. Sina writes down hers. They talk about it for a while before deciding on a combination of the two that makes them both smile. And then as Tui carves the name onto driftwood, Sina's smile falls.

"What name should we pick instead?" she asks. "To please the gods?"

There was the fishhook of stars, but his mother is already Tala. It's bad luck to name someone after a living relative. There is the rising moon, but none of the words fit. There are words for waves and water and wind and fish, but what can they pick? What name would give her the most protection among the gods?

Something rumbles. All at once the cry of birds and the easy chatter and laughter die off. Even the wind stills in the trees so that the only sound they hear is the ocean. All they feel is the heat, suddenly oppressive. And then the waves sound like a voice, an ancient, familiar, and terrifying voice saying a word he cannot make out...

"Sina? Do you hear something?"

Sina clutches his hand. "Only the waves. Only the ocean."

**M O A N A**

That's her name. The water surges up, far far beyond the true waterline, almost to their feet. Tui snatches up the driftwood with their daughter's name and hurls it out into the crashing waves, and only when the little speck of brown disappears below the water does everything slowly go back to normal.

Sina wipes her tears. "It's silly of me to cry," she says. "It's just a name."

"It was our name for her," Tui says. His own face is wet too. "Offerings have to mean something, Mother says." Actually she said they have to hurt, but that's not something he wants to think about.

Sina picks up the blanket and Tui picks her up and they take the long way home. Sina can look sad and everyone would chalk it up to new motherhood, but Tui would rather not answer awkward questions. He schools his face into something like pride and happiness.

They have given their daughter's name to the sea. Tui hopes it is enough.

\- - -

Tui doesn't know if it is easier or harder to call his daughter Moana.

He thought it would be hard to explain to the elders why he named his child after the ocean they are forbidden from, but when they tell everyone of her name, everyone simply nods.

"We knew," Mother says. "We heard the gods say her name."

It is easy after the first few days to simply call Moana by her name. It's not their name for her, but at the very least Tui no longer associates the word solely with the ocean that has called him all his life. In fact he rather likes it, in a way. This Moana is not the ageless, ancient sea who takes and gives. This Moana is just a child, his adorable baby girl. He feeds her and changes her diapers and combs her hair. She pukes on his shoulder and throws tantrums and squeals with laughter and is, for the most part, a very normal child. He loves this. He loves her.

It is hard when he finds her running to the ocean. The first time, she is a baby on the shore and he snatches her up, heart in his mouth. _Too soon, too soon,_ he thinks with vengeance. _You cannot take her, we had a deal. I gave you her name, wasn't that enough?_

Apparently not, because Moana keeps running to the ocean. Every year on her birthday, Tui makes an offering of kava and sugarcane to the ocean, trying not to think of what else he may have to give. He tries to distract Moana with dance, with song, with flowers and feathers and all the festivals. But she is a child and this only works so many times. On long days, he sees her visibly wither with boredom during chief lessons, staring out to sea.

"Daddy, why can't I play on the beach?" she asks. "Other kids play by the ocean all the time."

"The ocean is dangerous," he says, and he knows she doesn't believe him. "You are the chief's daughter and we are forbidden from sailing. As royalty we must lead by example."

They can't leave off teaching her how to swim, but Tui and Sina teach her in the freshwater lake by the mountain's waterfall. And she does, she swims like a fish--like the little minnow Sina called her sometimes. At first her behavior improves. But then Tui finds her wandering along a path he had only trod a few times in his life, a trail leading to the cavern of voyaging ships. When he saw those boats it set his heart on fire. That was when he asked to sail with Mother. If Moana sees those boats, he _knows_ she will be lost.

"Moana!" he barks. "Don't go down that path!"

"It leads to the mountain, not the ocean!"

"Look at how overgrown it is, love. We stopped going there for a reason."

"Why?"

"Because it's dangerous."

"Ugh!" Moana stamps her foot. "The ocean is dangerous! The mountain is dangerous! Everything is dangerous!" She stamps it three times for emphasis. "So why does everyone else go here and not me?"

"Moana, listen to me. I am the chief and you are my only daughter--"

"It's not _fair!_ " she shrieks. "You're the meanest dad ever! I hate you!"

Well, no more reasoning with her. He hauls her over his shoulder as usual, but unlike the other times where she simply sulked, she puts up a grand fight, pounding on his back with her tiny fists and kicking. Still, being at least three feet taller than his daughter means that he can drag her back home from anywhere on the island he likes. People stare and laugh behind their hands, and grannies cluck disapprovingly as they see him cart his screeching nine-year-old home as if--as if he's a _bad parent_ or something. He is their chief, so he can ignore them.

Sina takes one look at them and puts Moana to bed early so she can sleep off the tantrum. Then she takes some ointment and applies it to the bruises on Tui's shoulder.

"What happened this time?"

"She said it was unfair that I kept--ow--forbidding her from things that other children do."

"Well, it is."

"What?"

"She has friends, Tui," Sina points out. "How in the world will she spend any time with them if she's forbidden from half the things they do, simply because she's the chief's daughter? You didn't have nearly the same restrictions she did."

"That's because my mother raised me. In case you didn't notice, she's not the worrying type."

"And you turned out fine. You were happy, right?"

"Happy? Like Moana's not happy!"

"She is--except for when she's not." He frowns and Sina sighs. "If you keep telling her not to do things just because you worry about her, at one point she is going to do it anyway. Which is better, Moana getting hurt when there are plenty of people around to see it and help? Or alone because she snuck off by herself to do it?"

He remembers Bulan and relents. Just a bit. So the next morning over breakfast he asks, "Moana?" She slumps over, toying with her food and ignoring him. "Moana, I'm sorry about yesterday."

She's so surprised she looks up at him. "You're sorry?"

"Yes. I've had a think about it, and I've realized that... most of the things I tell you not to do aren't really that dangerous. Not if other people let their kids do it. But you, Moana, are my only daughter and I worry about you a lot and I don't want you to get hurt."

Sina clears her throat.

"Now, the only things I really don't want you to do are sail beyond the reef, which no one can do. And you can't go into that cavern--none of the village actually goes in there, either. But there's something your friends do, like play in the water, I've decided you can do that too--as long as one of us is watching."

"What about Gramma?"

"Yes, Gramma Tala is fine too," Sina says brightly.

"Maybe Gramma's a bit--"

Moana squeals and throws her arms around him, then runs out of the house. "I'mgoingtodancewithGrammaseeyoulaterMomandDaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!"

"Dance?" Tui asks.

"What, you haven't heard about your own mother and daughter dancing together?"

"I haven't seen them."

"I do." She pauses. "They dance by the ocean."

\- - -

That same strange restlessness from the other night fills Tui up and he finds himself running to Bulan's house. "Bulan?" he yells. "Hey, Bulan, I found something!"

Bulan comes out grumbling and rubbing his eyes. "How are you so loud? You were awake longer than me, did you even sleep?"

"This is more important than sleep. Quick, come look at this!" He checks to make sure no one's looking, then takes out the stone.

"Wow!" Bulan backs away from it at first. "Pure poumanu, Te Fiti's spiral... That definitely belongs to a woman. What are you doing with it, Tui? Your mom wants a girl?" He peers into Tui's eyes. "Secret wife?"

"No, idiot!" He laughs, though. "I found it in one of the fish your dad gave me."

"Like a story!" Bulan's eyes go wide. "Hey--speaking of stories. You're the chief's son, you find a mysterious pendant that no one else has seen. You think it's your job to give it back?"

"Back to who?" He keeps his cousin out of the conversation for her sake. "No one I know has anything like this or they'd be tearing up the island looking for it."

"No, I mean--" Bulan points to the ocean, lowering his voice. "What if we go out there?"

\- - -

Tui can't stand still after that. He leaves Bulan to sleep some more and wander alone up an unused trail on the mountain. Giving only the barest greetings to everyone he meets on the way, he gets a lot of questioning looks and he knows he looks like he's drunk too much kava, but his mind is whirling too much for him to care. He wonders where this comes from. He's never been so full of energy before.

_I can't go past the reef._

He has nothing with him to clear the brush, so he simply swats broad leaves and ferns aside with his arms. They rustle aside like bowing villagers and snap back into place behind him.

_The elders won't have it. I was lucky they even let me start sailing lessons._

The climb gets steeper but he keeps on going.

_I'm Mother's heir and I cannot take risks like that. Not after Father died--_

His feet have taken him to a walled-up tunnel in the mountain, just barely wide enough for him to squeeze through.

The exhaustion catches up with him and he sits on a boulder, breathing hard. The tunnel, he knows, leads to a cavern which holds the voyaging ships of their ancestors. When he saw those boats it set his heart on fire. He wishes he'd never seen them. What is he to do? He wants to go, he wants to find whoever lost this amulet, but...

\- - -

"I can't," Tui tells Bulan. "Maybe Mum wouldn't mind, but I'll never get permission from the elders."

"Who says we have to get permission?" Bulan grins.

"What... What do you mean? We just... go out there? Without telling anyone?"

"Yes, Tui. I know it's hard to wrap your mind around this concept, but people can do things without permission. We're practically grown men. We can sail. I take my dad's boat all the time."

"But won't somebody _notice?_ "

"Yeah, if we're complete idiots and go in plain view of everyone."

"But that means we'll have to go... at night or something."

Bulan nods slowly, exaggerating. "Yes, Tui."

\- - -

They shove off land into a quiet ocean and row for a while. Tui keeps thinking about the elders, what they would say if they found them here. Then Bulan elbows him. "Okay, Tui. We don't know where this mysterious lady is, but we at least need to have a route in mind so we can actually get back home."

Having a plan makes sense. Having a plan also makes him feel like he is less "sneaking off with his best friend" and more, "going on a secret quest to find a mysterious, wealthy, and probably very beautiful woman." He looks around at all the stars, but the one shining brightest is the fishhook. He points to it. "We'll use that as a starting point, the brightest stars."

"Looks like a fishhook," Bulan remarks.

"I knew it!" Tui laughs, and stifles it before it can travel far.

As they steer toward the fishhook, the wind rises and fills the sail.

But the ocean changes as soon as they reach the reef and the boat rocks so hard Bulan almost falls. In the midst of Tui's panic, he hears a voice:

**NOT HIM.**

"What?" Tui shouts.

"What?" Bulan shouts back.

"Did you say something?"

"No!"

It isn't a gentle woman's voice, but it definitely isn't Bulan's friendly one. And he knew that, but he tries to play it off as paranoia. They keep sailing but the waves spill over the boat until their feet are swamped. It's hard to stay planted in the canoe with the water swirling and Tui grabs onto a lifeline before he hears the voice again:

**LEAVE HIM BEHIND.**

Tui is wide awake now. He can't shake this off as a trick of his sleepy mind, no matter how much he would like to.

"Bulan, I think I heard someone--"

"There's no one around for miles!" Bulan yells. "We're fine, Tui, no one saw us."

_No one but the gods_ , Tui thinks. It was something his mother said and he'd never really paid attention to it but now he's afraid--the most he's ever been. What god is speaking to him? Why won't they let Bulan go with him?

Bulan is the one with more sailing experience and--and most importantly, Tui doesn't want to be alone.

The ocean roars and he can hear nothing but the wind and waves and the crack of palm trees breaking. Bulan's form sweeps onto shore and Tui's heart thunders until his friend fights his way up to standing. The stone grows heavy in the bag tied around his waist.

**LEAVE HIM AND SAIL ON.**

"Why?!" Tui yanks on the sheet trying to turn the boat around, but the wind drives the sail back into position so hard the rope cuts into his palms. When he lets go he's terrified to find the shore getting smaller and smaller and Bulan nowhere in sight.

**YOU ARE THE ONE I HAVE CHOSEN. NO ONE ELSE.**

"That's not fair!" he shouts into the storm. He looks around for Bulan on the shore and almost jumps out of his skin when a hand rises out of the water and clamps onto a line. Bulan's head appears soon after, sputtering but most definitely alive.

"Hey Tui." Tui almost weeps as he grabs Bulan and pulls him onto deck. "Wow, this is a big one! Everyone's going to be hiding at home."

"You're right," Tui says. "We need to go home and wait till it's over. No one will notice this isn't in place, not with the storm--"

"No, Tui, we need to keep going!"

"What?"

"This is the perfect time!" Bulan argues. "It'll be hours, maybe even a whole day before anyone even thinks to start asking where we are. We'll get a head start!"

" _You got swept off deck,_ " Tui tells him. He tries to ignore the voice he'd heard and the pain in his hands. He tries to ignore how, almost conveniently, he'd stayed on the boat no matter how much it rocked.

"Please, Tui. I'm a little lighter than you, haven't you noticed? Of course I got swept off deck. Maybe you'll fall overboard too."

Tui swallows and tastes brine and a little sand. "Bulan, it just occurred to me that this is pretty dangerous."

"You're going on an epic quest," Bulan says. "Quests are dangerous. You're going to need a friend and I know how to sail, besides."

"Have you been beyond the reef?"

"No. But hey, there's a time for everything, you know?"

A god--he isn't sure which--told him that he had to sail on alone, but Tui can't find it in him to refuse Bulan's help. _I don't want to be alone._ He reaches for the sheet and trims the sail and they go into the surf.

The storm swirls around them and the last thing Tui hears is a voice like thunder, telling him:

**NO ONE ELSE.**

\- - -

Darkness.

He wakes on the shore, surrounded by downed trees and torn plants and driftwood. His voice rasps as he calls Bulan's name. He coughs, and can't stop coughing until he's spat up blood and seawater. When he's done he rolls over onto his hands and knees, searching the wreckage until he finally finds Bulan, halfway in the water.

"Bulan! Quick, let's get home before--" He grabs Bulan's arm and tugs but almost drops it when he feels complete cold. "Bulan?" He comes closer to find his friend's eyes are open. Sighing in relief, he pulls harder. "Bulan, we have to--" At his tug, Bulan's torso lifts out of the sand but despite the open eyes he doesn't answer. He's not breathing. "Bulan, wake up! Please, please, please, please wake up!"

The ocean splashes him and he looks up to see the boat, completely unharmed, floating a little ways off the shore. The water at Bulan's knees recedes and a path is made, leading to the boat.

**SAIL ON.**

He can't. He can't do it alone.

He picks Bulan up and turns his back on the path in the water. He doesn't want to know what people will think of him, carrying his best friend's body. He puts one foot in front of the other until he finally reaches the devastated square and finds, to his utter horror, that he isn't the only one. All over the village there are burial shrouds with survivors crying over them, and bodies being carried in or out. Bulan's parents and sister caught sight of him and Bulan and a keen goes up.

"It was my fault," he whispers as the family rushes up. "I am too ashamed to even beg your forgiveness."

"Tui," Bulan's father tells him wearily, taking Bulan. "Look all around us. Why would I blame you for this storm?"

"Because I--"

"Tui!" Mother appears and throws her arms around him. "You silly boy! What--" She sees Bulan's family laying their son on the ground and falls quiet.

"Mum," he says, and through the cold spray on his face he feels warm tears spilling down.

Mother takes him to the remains of their house and spends the rest of the day tallying all the village's missing or dead. Huli goes to his betrothed's house--they'd heard she was injured. Tui spends half a day repairing thatching on the roof before he realizes he hasn't bandaged his hands. Inspecting the layers of grass and expecting blood over everything, he finds nothing. Lifting his hands, he sees they've healed completely without a scar. It's a little like an insult.

When everyone is too busy to miss him, he goes out to the platform of rock and addresses the gods.

"Keep it!" he shouts, hurling the stone into the ocean. "Find someone else to be your chosen one!" The ocean rumbles nastily and Tui decides he doesn't care. He stalks back home to repair the roof but ends up crying more than thatching.

He is sixteen.

\- - -

"Sina."

She stirs. "What?"

"I need to talk to you about her name," Tui says.

"I was thinking of--"

He shakes his head quickly and she stops. "What's wrong?"

With a little bit of shame, he leaves a few things out, like how he disobeyed the gods and his best friend died. Instead he tells her of his family's tendency to go to sea and how they were all, eventually, forbidden from sailing beyond the reef in order to preserve the line.

"That doesn't make any sense," Sina says. "Doesn't it make you unhappy?"

"No."

She looks at him very intently, then sighs. "Well, what does this have to do with our baby's name?"

"I don't want anything bad to happen," he says. "So I want to make an offering. Normally it's food or kava but... I feel like this one would mean more."

\- - -

The days just after the storm are the hardest in Tui's life. Even years before, they remain fresh in his mind: The absence of his brother, staying at his betrothed's house. She'd broken several bones, but most importantly she hadn't woken up after three days. They're supposed to be married next year.

"You can't keep blaming yourself," Mother tells him. "Whatever you did before the storm, I'm sure it didn't warrant Bulan's death. These things just happen. It's the will of the gods, not ours."

"But Mother--"

"What?" She looks at him and her eyes are piercing all of a sudden. "Tui? Have you done something to anger the gods?"

"I didn't--I didn't mean to--" He weeps as the words spills out. He told her everything--about the stone he found one night when he couldn't sleep, the fishhook, taking a boat with Bulan, and how he'd heard an ancient voice in his head. Mother lets him cry on her shoulder, but she's still stern when she finally speaks.

"Why on earth would you take Bulan with you when the gods told you to go alone?"

"I've n-never been out beyond the reef, Mum. And I've never sailed alone, I was too scared."

She sighs. "If the elders hadn't told me to stop teaching you and Huli, I would have told you how to sail in blue water."

"Have you ever sailed past the reef?"

"Once," she says. "But I remember like it was yesterday. Do you want me to teach you?" He shakes his head. "What happened to the stone, by the way?"

"I gave it back," he says. "Well... I threw it back in and told the ocean to pick someone else."

"You sure do know how to muck things up," she tells him, but fondly. "Come on. Let's go make an offering to the ocean. It still likes me, at least."

They don't catch anyone's notice going to the shore with their arms full of offerings. Huli is still at his betrothed's house and they don't have the heart to pry him away from her bedside. Among the droves of other people paying respects to their loved ones in the afterlife, praying to the ocean for kindness, Tui and his mother are given a respectful distance as chief and heir. No one asks any questions about the tiny offering at the end--a lock of Tui's hair and a whispered apology.

And then life goes on. It's sadder than before, but a few weeks later Tui walks out to find that the houses are looking complete, the wind-blown trees have been dug out, and people are singing again. Nako and Pono meet them in the square and hold everyone up to announce, a little more dramatically than necessary, that there is finally a baby on the way. Mother slaps Nako on the shoulder. "I knew it!" she shouted. "You were worried over nothing!" Huli laughed for the first time in days.

Pono finds him on the fringe of the well-wishing crowd and threw her arms around his neck, giving him the tightest hug he'd ever gotten.

"I know you're still grieving," she whispers. "But thank you for that fish, cousin."

"I'm pretty sure whatever Nako got helped you more than a plain old fish."

She smiles. "I didn't drink it. I trusted your story."

And then Huli's future in-laws appear with smiles on their faces and for a moment, everything looks like it's going to be just fine.

\- - -

"Tui," his mother rasps. "Come here."

He goes over to her and dimly notices that her necklace is gone. But he ignores it and clutches her hand. "Yes?" he asks, throat tightening.

"Oh, Tui. You've been called to the ocean all your life--but you have a heart of fire, my boy. Maybe that's why it was so hard for you to answer."

"I don't understand," he says. That's when he starts crying. "Don't leave me, Mum, there's so much I don't understand."

"Let me tell you a secret." He kneels closer. "There's a lot I don't understand, either."

She dies with a smile on her face.

Tui doesn't know how long he stays by the bed. He knows that at one point Sina goes into the other room and calls softly, "Moana?" And then she says she's going home to find Moana. He keeps holding his mother's hand until the healers gently pry him away.

"Tala Waialiki has gone to the ancestors!" the head medicine woman cries.

They begin a mourning procession and travel through the village with only the stars to lead them. Tui beats his chest as he extinguishes the torches in the medicine women's house, and he goes from house to house with the women until everyone has heard the news. As strange and unpredictable and occasionally frightening as she was, Tala was also full of love. Soon all the torches are blown out and the wailing comes from every house, pressing in on his head like rocks, and he can't escape the sound because it also comes from deep within his chest.

When he comes home, it is silent and dark but too quiet. And empty. Going into the kitchen he finds Sina sitting alone in the dark with food strewn around her.

"Sina?" His voice is hoarse. "Where's Moana?"

"Moana was leaving," she tells him. "She told me she would return the Heart of Te Fiti."

"The rock." He coughs. "Where is she now?"

"I don't know."

"Well, what direction did she run off in?" He can't light a torch. They aren't supposed to light torches for an hour or so after a death in the family. "Never mind, then--when she comes back, tell Moana she needs to prepare for Mother's--"

"I don't know when she'll be back."

"What'd you mean? We'll find her wherever she is on the island, at least tomorrow when it's light. I know it's hard, she and Mother were close, but we have to--"

"Tui," Sina tells him. "When I came here I found her packing. And I--" She swallows. "I helped her pack. I sent her off."

"You sent her off."

Sina nods. "She w-went to the cavern with the voyaging ships. I saw a boat go down the river just before the torches went out. I don't know where she is now."

" _You don't know where she is?!_ " He finds his voice again and stands up to full height and roars, "Sina, how could you?!"

"I did it because the gods are hungry!" Sina cries, and he has no idea what that means and it makes him even angrier. "My mother said--"

"I don't want to hear it!"

"In times like these, even the gods are hungry and we have to give them something. They've already taken our food--"

"You gave them _our daughter!_ Right after Mother died--wasn't that enough? Wasn't her name enough?"

"Your mother lived a long life," Sina tells him, and while she is still terrified of him, she holds firm in her own way. "She left on her own terms, she was not given. An offering has to mean something. And... a name was not enough, even you know it wasn't since Moana kept trying to go to the ocean. So I packed Moana's things and I sent her away."

She's crying and even in his anger Tui knows better than to retort that it must have been easy. A mother offering her only child was indeed a great sacrifice--but the traditional way was to have her become a priestess, dedicating her life to the gods. Something in him whispers about the kava root springing from the grave of an only daughter. But their way, the priestess way, Moana would have still been on the island. They would know if something happened to her right away, and she wouldn't be out in the middle of the ocean--

Tui suddenly remembers demanding that the ocean pick someone else, all those years ago. All the pain he's endured in the past few hours smashes through his rage and he falls to his knees.

"This is my fault," he groans.

Sina doesn't come near him to give any comfort--and part of him acknowledges that she is right. The death of his mother is not an excuse for him to act in such a way towards his wife, to frighten her with his misplaced anger and grief. She walks out of the house crying, and Tui is alone with his pain and his memories. The next day he awakes, still alone, but thinking a little clearer.

His mother is dead. His daughter is missing. He can't lose his wife, too. Not all in one night.

He spends the morning gathering maile and jasmine. They aren't food flowers, so they won't be missed, but many of the plants are wilting on the vine and it takes a long time to find an unblemished patch. After a few strands have been woven and there are no more fresh flowers anywhere, Tui sighs. It is less offensive to have a thin lei of fresh flowers than a thick one with brown leaves and petals, but he still feels like it's a sad sight.

Sina would have gone to her mother's house, so he heads there, cradling his lei. Her mother answers the door and Tui is transported back to his youth when he had first started courting Sina. He bows and asks if he can talk to her and she reluctantly stands aside to call for her daughter. When Sina arrives and sees the lei of wedding flowers in his hand, her eyes brim.

"Can you forgive me for the way I acted last night?"

"Oh, Tui." She takes the lei and puts it over her neck. "This is a hard time for everyone."

_Even for the gods_ , he thinks. _Even the gods are hungry._

\- - -

But to his surprise Moana comes home safe and sound on a boat adorned with flowers. The next few weeks are a whirlwind in which Tui goes about replenishing supplies, overseeing major repairs, and taking records. He complains when people argue with him about things like who owns which tree right on the border of two plots, but it doesn't stick when Moana pops in, saying to split it in two.

And a few months later, one couple announces they are pregnant, which sets off a veritable wave of announcements that a new child is going to be born.

One day he's walking around the lagoon checking out the fishermen's repairs when he hears a throat clear. Moana is at his elbow. "Hey, Dad?"

"Yes?" The look on her face gives him pause. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing!" she says, too quickly. "I just wanted to ask about... about the boats."

"What, these?" He looks to the fishermen's boats, anchored in the lagoon as usual. "They look fine to me."

"Um..." She looks down. "The ones in the cavern. Are they still... there?" Instantly, he remembers his angry words before she left and winces. He can't believe he'd nearly run off to burn symbols of their ancestors, their heritage. "I mean, it's okay," she says. "They're really old, probably too old to... actually sail. I wanted to study them and make new boats, but we can look at mine for that--"

"I didn't burn them. Not a bit."

Moana's so relieved that Tui wants to cry. He'd scared her when he outright forbade sailing beyond the reef--he knew as a warrior and chief that anyone would be scared of him in a rage, but this was his own daughter. He'd been so ashamed of himself afterwards--and unlike with Sina, he hadn't had time to make amends with Moana. Not properly. But she'd never come up to him about it. She'd been more worried about the boats than herself.

"Come on, love," he says, offering his hand. "Those things have been in the damp and dark for hundreds of years. I don't know if there's much to study, but let's check out the damage."

She laughs and takes his hand, practically dragging him to the cavern in her excitement.

\- - -

For a few weeks the cavern rings with sawing and hammering and people weaving new sails, and Moana beams all the way through it. When the boats are hauled down the river and into the lagoon, Tui feels his heart quicken. He takes Sina's hand as she heads to the shore to rest, but stops as he feels the tide swirl around his feet. He motions for his wife to go on and looks down.

There is a small white thing glinting half-buried in the sand. He kneels to pull it out before anyone else can step on it. It's bigger than he thought, the pointed end extending to a ball wider than his palm. It's got enough heft to it that he thinks it's whalebone, but it's cracked in several places.

"What am I going to do with this, then?" he asks, half-joking. But he turns to the ocean and wonders if it means he should carve another offering.

The ocean sparkles but says nothing.

The stonecarvers take a look at it and shrug. "It's whalebone, but look at all those cracks. Maybe if you're careful, you'll get a few fishhooks out of it."

Fishhooks...

That night, before the boats set sail, Tui sits on the platform of lava rock with the bone in hand, staring out into the ocean. The moon inches above the horizon. It's much the same as the night he set sail with Bulan--but try as he might, he can't find the constellation that looked like a fishhook. There's a gap in the stars where he thinks it used to be.

"Have you forgiven me?"

He's not sure who he's asking--there are so many things he has done that he regrets, so many people (and gods) to ask for forgiveness. Something glimmers and splashes. Tui looks out to find fish leaping all across the water. The gods don't speak to him as they did when he was sixteen, but maybe that's his answer.

\- - -

Their first night beyond the reef, Tui heads out of the cabin, stepping softly to keep from waking Moana and Sina. Sitting on the ama, with a fishhook dangling on a fine line he wove himself, he takes a breath of the air. Very strong and salty, not like on Motunui where a shift of the wind can hide it with flowers or the smell of cooking. Taking a little dried baitfish, he sets it on the hook, drops it into the ocean, and waits. Within minutes, there's a tug, and he pulls up his fishhook to find a much bigger fish on the line than he'd thought, easily spanning his arm from elbow to fingertips.

Tradition means he has to give the first fish back to the ocean as thanks, so Tui carefully unhooks it and lets it back into the water where it darts away. Then he drops his hook again and observes the full moon. The moon is a goddess, but he feels like Bulan is close, like he's sitting on the ama ushering fish to his hook.

_You were right, Bulan._ For once he doesn't feel pain thinking of his friend. _Nighttime really is the best time to fish._

"Tui?" comes Sina's voice. "What are you doing?"

"I couldn't sleep, so I'm fishing."

"At this hour?" He smiles as Sina sits next to him, dangling her feet in the water.

"I was just thinking of that offering we made when Moana was born," he says. "I wonder if it worked. Looks like the sea's taken her anyway."

"Well, the ocean is big and hungry." Despite the words, there's no bitterness in Sina's voice. "So hungry it took the rest of us with her."

"I don't mind," Tui says. "As long as we're all together." Another fish tugs on his line and he pulls it up for a moment, then lets it go. He lets everything on that quiet night go free, so many that he's sure there's a trail behind them for miles. A whole school composed entirely of shimmering fish, carrying his gratitude.

Just before the sun comes up, a manta ray appears.

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted to write a story explaining why Tui named his daughter Moana, and settled on 'protection from the gods.' One of the first scenes I wrote was the offering of Moana's original name to the sea for protection. It was originally going to be the second and last scene. About three thousand words later, I also realized this would tie in with why Sina let Moana go despite being so upset.
> 
> The myth at the beginning is Tongan folklore about the origin of the kava root. I had mostly finished this story, but then I showed it to my sister who said the plot reminded her of the myth, and it fit with the rest of the story, so I took the opportunity to open the story with it.
> 
> The very first scene I started was Bulan's death, since it explained Tui's complete opposition to the ocean, but it was also the hardest to write and I finished it last.


End file.
